Gerald Joseph Wasserburg was an American geologist born March 25, 1927, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, who died June 13, 2016, and who held the John D. MacArthur Professorship at the California Institute of Technology, specializing in isotope geochemistry, cosmochemistry, and astrophysics. He developed potassium argon dating methods during his doctoral research, discovered the short lived radioactive isotopes aluminum 26 and palladium 107 in the early Solar System, pioneered precise measurement of ultra small samples under clean room conditions, co-invented the Lunatic Spectrometer, described as the first fully digital mass spectrometer with computer controlled magnetic field scanning, and established lunar chronology while proposing the Late Heavy Bombardment hypothesis. He received the Arthur L. Day Medal in 1970, the Wollaston Medal in 1985, the Crafoord Prize in Geosciences in 1986, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1991, the William Bowie Medal in 2008, and NASA Distinguished Public Service Medals in 1972 and 1978.
Facts
Birth YearSourced to the subject's own account Birth DateSourced to the subject's own account Death DateSourced to the subject's own account Death YearSourced to the subject's own account FieldSourced to the subject's own accountIsotope geochemistry, cosmochemistry, meteoritics, and astrophysics 1 NationalitySourced to the subject's own account Notable WorkSourced to the subject's own accountCo-invented the Lunatic Spectrometer and established a chronology for the Moon and early Solar System through the Apollo Program lunar samples 1 BirthplaceSourced to the subject's own accountNew Brunswick, New Jersey, US 1 In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Gerald J. Wasserburg (Wikipedia)
Wikipedialead paragraph
Gerald J. Wasserburg (March 25, 1927 - June 13, 2016) was an American geologist.
infobox, birth_place field
birth_place= [[New Brunswick, New Jersey]], US
Apollo Program section
He and his co-workers were major contributors to establishing a chronology for the Moon and proposed the hypothesis of the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) of the whole inner Solar System at near 4.0 Gy ago
lead paragraph, research-fields sentence
He was known for his work in the fields of isotope geochemistry, cosmochemistry, meteoritics, and astrophysics.
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